Category: reader

210 Degree VR Headset With 5K Display Revealed By ‘Payday’ Developer Starbreeze

An anonymous reader writes: Starbreeze Studios has taken wraps off of StarVR, a new VR headset with dual displays comprising a 210 degree horizontal field of view with a total resolution of 5120×1440. The headset’s origins come from InfinitEye, a company working on a super-wide dual-display headset back in 2013 (http://bit.ly/1JNjqRy), which went into stealth mode for quite some time before being reborn as StarVR in partnership with Starbreeze Studios (http://bit.ly/1QwB0Nx). The studio is the developer behind the Payday franchise, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and now ‘Overkill’s The Walking Dead’, which will have a VR component utilizing the new headset. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

See more here:
210 Degree VR Headset With 5K Display Revealed By ‘Payday’ Developer Starbreeze

Report: Russia and China Crack Encrypted Snowden Files

New submitter garyisabusyguy writes with word that, according to London’s Sunday Times, “Russia and China have cracked the top-secret cache of files stolen by the fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden, forcing MI6 to pull agents out of live operations in hostile countries, according to senior officials in Downing Street, the Home Office and the security services, ” and suggests this non-paywalled Reuters version, too. “MI6 has decided that it is too dangerous to operate in Russia or China, ” writes the submitter. “This removes intelligence capabilities that have existed throughout the Cold War, and which may have helped to prevent a ‘hot’ nuclear war. Have the actions of Snowden, and, apparently, the use of weak encryption, made the world less safe?” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

See more here:
Report: Russia and China Crack Encrypted Snowden Files

A Map That May Have Led Columbus To America Is Finally Being Deciphered

The primary way we share ideas today is the internet. In the 15th century, it was cartography. And now, researchers at Yale are giving us a glimpse of one of the most influential maps in history—parts of which, up until now, had been too faded and aged to read. Read more…

Read more here:
A Map That May Have Led Columbus To America Is Finally Being Deciphered

Moore’s Law in action: making our machines ever more micro

Over the past few decades, engineers have leveraged Moore’s Law to the fullest, resulting in powerful ultrathin laptops and feature-rich miniature wearables . Back in 1981, a 23-pound Osborne 1 computer was considered portable, with 64KB of onboard memory. Today, smartphones weigh just a few ounces and easily pack 128GB of storage. There’s also a vastly more complex architecture of circuits and sensors inside these devices, all at a scale nearly invisible to the eye. It’s taken us decades to develop and shrink down these microelectronics to where they are today, which is no small feat. Join us as we ride the ever-shrinking gadget wave from its early days to some of the nanoscopic creations at work today. [Image: IBM Research Zurich] Filed under: Robots , Science Comments

Original post:
Moore’s Law in action: making our machines ever more micro

CloneApp Backs Up All Your Windows Program Settings

Windows: Whether you’re migrating to a new computer or doing a clean install, life is easier when you take all your settings and tweaks with you. If you don’t want to do a full backup and restore, CloneApp backs up settings for the most popular Windows programs so you can restore them later. Read more…

More here:
CloneApp Backs Up All Your Windows Program Settings

Surface Pro 3 Handily Outperforms iPad Air 2 and Nexus 9

An anonymous reader points to an interesting comparison of current tablets’ peformance, as measured with the Geekbench benchmarking tool, which boils down various aspects of performance to produce a single number. The clear winner from the models fielded wasn’t from Apple of Samsung (Samsung’s entrants came much lower down, in fact), but from Microsoft: the i5-equipped Surface Pro 3, with a Geekbench score of 5069.; second place goes to the Apple iPad Air 2, with 4046. The Nexus 9 rated third, with 3537. One model on the list that U.S. buyers may not be familiar with is the Tesco Hudl 2, a bargain tablet which Trusted Reviews seems quite taken by. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read the original post:
Surface Pro 3 Handily Outperforms iPad Air 2 and Nexus 9

Scientists defy gravity with ‘perpetual’ water pump

Scientists have figured out how to pump water upwards in a thick tube using a combination of surface tension and water-repellent materials. Before you get your hopes up, it’s definitely no perpetual-motion machine — but the discovery from Beihang University researchers in China could bring other benefits. Here’s how it works: The right angle pipe shown above is filled with a small amount of water, which can’t drain thanks to a copper mesh doped with a superhydrophobic (water-rejecting) material at the bottom. When a small droplet is introduced, it’s drawn upward by surface tension , albeit very slowly (the above GIF is sped up about 75 times). Though it seems to violate the first law of thermodynamics, there are some caveats. First off, the system can only “pump” water around a centimeter (half-inch) up before the effect stops working. More importantly, the water must be introduced at the bottom in droplet form (below) by someone squeezing a pipette, for instance (it takes energy to make a droplet). When the droplets collapse via surface tension, enough energy is released to lift the water. That said, the invention could still prove useful. The new technique can lift water up a thicker pipe than capillary action, and the team feels the research could eventually result in new “microfluidic” devices like labs-on-a-chip . Filed under: Science Comments Via: New Scientist Source: Wiley

Visit link:
Scientists defy gravity with ‘perpetual’ water pump

Virgin America upgrades inflight entertainment system with Android, SSDs

Virgin America’s inflight entertainment system Red was already something of a technical marvel , at least compared to offerings from other airlines. Sporting 9-inch, 1024×600 pixel resolution touch screens, USB ports, power outlets, Ethernet sockets, and a custom Linux-based OS, Red gave the airline industry a serious kick when it launched in 2007. But the competition is heating up, and with Emirates and Singapore Airlines taking the top spots for inflight entertainment last year, Virgin America has decided that it’s time for a upgrade. Enter the latest version of Red, this time built on a new Android-based based platform, which the airline is planning to beta test on 18 aircraft by the end of the year. The Red beta makes use of Panasonic’s latest Eco V2 inflight system (the current version of Red also runs on Panasonic hardware), which pairs a 9-inch (or 11-inch) 720p capacitive touch screen with the company’s latest Android-based software. The screens will also sport integrated audio jacks, USB sockets, and a credit card reader, and decode HD video at 720p. Panasonic says it’s offering out software development kits to airlines, including a rack simulator, example code, developer tools, and a custom API. Virgin America claims that using Android will make the system easier to maintain and upgrade. With many developers already intimately familiar with Google’s OS, the airline should have an easier time adding new services to the platform. The first of those new services to hit the beta are new games, including retro classics like Atari’s Asteroids and Pac-Man , as well as an upgraded interactive map that finally recognises pinch and swipe gestures. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

View post:
Virgin America upgrades inflight entertainment system with Android, SSDs

Everybody copies everyone: iOS 9 features inspired by Android

Apple announced iOS 9 on Monday, and while watching the keynote, I had just a little bit of déjà vu. Most of iOS 9’s new features seem to be squarely aimed at Apple’s biggest rival in mobile: Android. Specifically, they were about  catching up  to Android. Search improvements, proactive assistance, split screen, and transit directions? It’s been done, but the differences are the fun part, so we chased down the new iOS 9 screenshots and compared them to their Android counterparts. It’s not just about who copied whom; it’s also a chance to look at the different designs of the two operating systems. And hey, Apple isn’t the only one taking ideas from a competitor. Android M’s selectable app permissions are an exact copy of the iOS model. Siri and Search are chasing Google Now but hitting Google where it hurts The iOS 9 Search and Google Now screens. 8 more images in gallery iOS 9 adds a lot of “proactive assistant” and search features that were first seen on Android. The main search screen now looks a lot like Google Now, with cards showing various bits of information. Search differs from Google Now in that it shows suggested people and apps at the top, but the News and Nearby places are all Google Now. iOS search shows categories for Nearby places, while Google Now shows individual places with ratings and pictures. Read 19 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read More:
Everybody copies everyone: iOS 9 features inspired by Android